France ‘very strongly’ condemns plan to conquer and hold Gaza, says Israel ‘in violation of humanitarian law’

France’s foreign minister says that Paris “very strongly” condemns Israel’s new military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

“It’s unacceptable,” Jean-Noel Barrot says in a radio interview, adding that the Israeli government is “in violation of humanitarian law,” after its security cabinet approved a plan that an Israeli official said will entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that the military will stay stationed in whatever areas of the Gaza Strip are captured until all the goals of the war are reached.

The new plan was also assailed by opposition politicians, who accused the government of prioritizing political survival over the lives of hostages and IDF soldiers.

The Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, which sparked the current war, saw thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, of whom 58 remain in Gaza, including at least 35 who are thought to be dead, in addition to the remains of a soldier who was killed in the Strip in 2014.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 414.

More than 52,500 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry. The figures cannot be independently verified, and do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January, and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the Hamas onslaught.